There is presently a desire to provide the most exciting viewing experience possible to users of today's video display systems. One technology known to provide an enhanced viewing experience includes the projection of three dimensional (3-D) images. In the projection of 3-D images, two component images of a single three dimension image are time-sequentially displayed on a single display plane. Each of these images is taken from a slightly different perspective. These two component images are called the Right eye sub-frame and the Left eye sub-frame. As is evident from their name, each of these sub-frames is meant for only one eye of the viewer. Hence, means are provided to allow only one eye of the viewer to see the appropriate sub-frame at a time. One such means is a pair of 3-D glasses, which cancels out one of the two sub-frames per eye, thus seeing a single 3-D image on the display plane.
Systems currently configured to project the 3-D images have certain inherent problems. Image brightness is one such inherent problem. For example, because an initially unpolarized light beam (e.g., provided from a broad band lamp source, a light emitting diode (LED) source(s), etc.) is converted to a polarized light beam with orthogonal polarizations at a location proximate the viewer (e.g., often using the 3-D glasses), at least about 50% of the brightness of the initial unpolarized light beam is automatically lost.
What is needed is a device or system that addresses the loss of brightness experienced in the prior art.